Macbeth 9

Study Guide Questions for Act 5, Scenes 5-8

If you are looking for the beginning of the study for Shakespeare’s Macbeth then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide. If you would like to see the growing list of book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!

Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Indifference, Light vs. Darkness, Death, Despair, Fate vs. Fortune, Recklessness, Fortitude, Home

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What disconcerting (unsettling) noise did Macbeth hear?

2. How did Macbeth describe the nature of “life?”

3. What strange sight did a messenger report to Macbeth?

4. As the Scots and Englishmen approached Macbeth’s castle, whom did they decide should lead the charge of battle?

5. At the beginning of Scene 7, what statement from the Weird Sisters is Macbeth still clinging to?

6. Who is the first to fight Macbeth and what is the outcome?

7. Who encounters Macbeth next for a fight and what does he reveal about himself to Macbeth?

8. What did Macduff say would be done with Macbeth if he were to be captured alive?

9. After Siward learns his son is dead, what did he want to know about how he died?

10. Now that Macbeth is dead, “what’s more to do” to set things right in the kingdom of Scotland?

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. Why might Lady Macbeth have killed herself?

2. Macbeth said, “I pull in resolution and begin to doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend, that lies like truth.” What did he mean by this?

3. Where have we previously seen talk of equivocation and how does the notion of equivocation fit into the larger theme of the play?

4. What did Macbeth mean by saying, “I ‘gin to be weary of the sun and wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone?”

5. Why did Macbeth try to place confidence in the word of the prophecy about no man “born of woman” being able to kill him when the other prophecy about Birnam Wood had already betrayed him?

6. What did Malcolm mean by saying, “We have met with foes that strike beside us?”

7. What did Ross mean by saying to Siward (about his son), “Your cause of sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end?”

8. Why was Siward concerned to know where on his son’s body were his injuries received?

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. “Nihilism” is the philosophy that states there is no meaning or purpose in life, rather, humanity is essentially an absurd cosmic accident produced by nature. Do you think Macbeth is a Nihilist when we first meet him in the play? What about by the end of the play? If you think his outlook on life changed over the course of the play, what caused this? Use the text and good reasoning to justify your answer.

2. What conditions are necessary in order for life to be meaningful? Is the meaningfulness of life something which we can control (or manufacture), is it entirely governed by something external to us, or is it some combination thereof? Explain your reasoning as to why you think as you do about this.

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Ecclesiastes 1 and compare it to Macbeth’s description of the life of man. Do you see these as in agreement or disagreement? Why?

2. Read Ecclesiastes 12. How does this final chapter of the book offer some temperance to the despair of this life? 

3. Read Romans 8:18-39. How does the knowledge of the good news about Jesus completely change the tone of how we ought to look at the difficulties in our lives?